The last job I had was my internship with Target as a Executive Team Leader Management Intern. To be honest, I remember the first job description I saw for the internship was when I applied for it through Oregon State University’s Handshake portal, and the description was very vague and more on what Target is about. The reason I applied for it was because Handshake said that my profile matched with all of the Target internship’s preferences for the job. So really, initially I didn’t pay much attention to the job description before I applied as I was keeping an open mind to all my internship options, but also thought I would never really end up working at a retail store.
Once I continued interview after interview with Target, I decided that the internship and working for the large corporation would be a great experience in management training for me. I learned more about what the job entailed during the recruiting process, but not really with any paper job description aside from what I first saw on Handshake. When I got to orientation for the internship was when I was given a formal handout of job description expectations, but I already knew what the expectations were for the job from the interviews before I accepted. I will say that the descriptions I was given later in the recruiting and on-boarding process did somewhat align with what I actually did during the internship.
The description made it seem like I was going to be doing a lot of the tasks I learned independently, but that never really happened. I was always alongside another Executive Team Leader that was training me, not really doing tasks alone because I was new to retail – so that did make sense. The descriptions did align with what they promised and what I was able to do for leadership experience and managing multiple teams, sales, giving input in ETL meetings, and more. As the internship progressed, I was able to run a given ETL’s department on my own, with some help from the Store Director, while the ETL was on vacation. I will say the job description was helpful and accurate, but definitely glamorized to attract candidates. Giving the internship a shot and getting into retail without much of an initial job description was a gamble that ended up working out in my favor and I loved the internship!
I do not have a copy of the job description.